Forget Not, Remember Always
by TheDeep
Summary: The 13th Anniversary of 9/11 has come, and in remembrance, Mac reflects on the story of that day through his eyes and tells Angie about what it was like to be there when the world seemed to come to a halting stop in mere seconds. 2014's "Remember 9/11" one-shot.


**~ Author's Notes ~**

**It is once again that time of year… and I can't believe another year has already gone by so fast. But that's not the real focus at all, of course. I've decided to let Angie have a visit here. **** I hope you guys enjoy, and I hope this lives up to expectations and does what I mean it to. Just another one shot for this year, guys. ;)**

"_No day shall erase you from the memory of time."_

_~ Virgil ~_

Mac raised an eyebrow at her as she stood in the doorway of the bedroom, leisurely leaning against the door frame and smirking just softly as she took in his expression. "Plan on going somewhere?" he asked finally, smiling.

"You did say we were going for a few drinks tonight," Angie reminded him with a gentle, graceful smile. "What?" she added, "Is this too much?"

The black dress she wore was honest. It was enough to show she was confident she could attract eyes, and she definitely could, but it wasn't to the point of vying for the attention. Complementing would be the right word.

He smiled finally. "No," he said almost shyly, "You look great, Angie."

Now she blushed, quickly brushing a rebellious strand of her dark black hair behind her ear. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Mac shook his head gently in amusement before he went over to her and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "I'm going to change," he told her, "But I'll be back out and then we can go wherever you'd like."

Angie smiled softly and nodded, "I'll drive and surprise you," she told him.

Mac smiled and chuckled lightly, "I'm sure you will."

**ooOOoo**

Angie leaned against him as they both mindlessly watched the crowd around them. "So," she said, breaking the companionable silence they had both settled with, "Where were you…? That morning?"

Another year… It was already another year… Mac set the bottle he'd been working slowly on down on the table in front of them, taking a few moments to remember everything in a flash like he was trying to recall only a few seconds, not an entire day.

"The precinct," he said after a few moments, "I was in interrogation just before I finally figured out what had gone down. Everyone was rushing about and gathered around the TV…. And… there was the news report about the Towers…" He shook his head just slightly. "I couldn't believe it at first… I just stood there, trying to grasp the meaning of words I knew, but… I couldn't make sense of them. And… then I called Claire…"

Angie carefully slipped an arm around his shoulders and pressed her face against his neck in her special way of understanding him. "You've told me about her before, you know?" she asked after a few moments of her boyfriend remaining silent and leaving his reflective gaze rest on the table they were at.

A faint smile traced across his lips at her words. "Yeah… I think I have," he murmured, turning his head to look at her and making her raise her head to meet his gaze.

She smiled gently. "You don't have to…" she started to tell him, but he shook his head.

"I should," he said. He raised one shoulder in a bit of a shrug. "It's not often we get to ask about things like 9/11… Well…, it's not even that… It's just that… not a lot of people take the time to ask… No one wants to open an old wound…"

He stopped to look at her again. "That's what it was for me," he said with a soft sigh and another slight shake of his head. "I carried it like the burden I thought it was for so many years that I think I've actually lost count…" A slightly amused smile showed at the corners of his mouth at that before he continued, "And it was the purest way to learn that I couldn't keep living in the past... No one can. And it took me that long to really accept that I could move on and put it behind me. So… ask away," he said with another slight smile as he looked back at her with a knowing gaze, "Ask what you want to know and I'll tell you that day through my eyes."

Angie smiled just slightly and shook her head for a brief moment like she was struggling to pick a starting point. "What was it like?" she asked finally, "To _be_ here?"

"No one saw it coming," Mac responded. "It was just another day when we woke up. It was routine… running through the motions of starting what we all thought was going to be just another day." He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other as Angie scooted back into her own seat properly, leaning an elbow on the table to listen to what he obviously wanted to tell her.

She'd known it'd take a little time to let him get ready, but he didn't need rushed. He'd get to the point when he was ready.

"After the Towers went down, it was a mess… I don't think anyone really knew where we were… Sure, we knew we were in New York, but _where_ in New York…? It was all gone," he explained with a sweep of his hand through the space in front of him. "All of it… Lost in the mess of everything the Towers left behind. I don't know if I was any better off than the people I saw injured that day," he continued. "I mean… It was another day… The sky was… Hell,… one of the clearest shades of blue I can remember ever taking note of over this city. And just like that," he said with a snap of his fingers, "none of it mattered anymore. I think the only things that kept running through my mind were Claire…, reminding myself what had happened… and… a loss… for why this had happened… _what_ had happened. You could stand on the corner of the street and just stare… And it was just all coated… Cars, buildings… even the people. Every single one of them… as gray as the sky before a storm."

He stopped there, hands in his lap as he chewed just slightly at his lip. "I think that's what I remember most about that time… Gray. It just fit everything so perfectly… The mood, what had happened… how I felt about the future. At that point, I didn't know what it held… I wasn't sure it held anything nice… Especially in the days after. It just hits you," he explained, setting his jaw for a few moments as he closed his eyes. "One day it just hit me… She wasn't coming home. I should've accepted it the moment the Towers collapsed. I've worked in Law Enforcement for… Hell, I don't even know how long it's been now… But I could've known right off the bat she wasn't coming back… But you never want to believe it… That's as much of a fact as a killer's DNA sample at a crime scene."

He took a deep breath and let it out as a soft sigh and Angie reached over, taking one of his hands in hers before raising her eyes to his. If he hadn't expressed himself well enough in words, his gaze told the rest. They told the final story about the days that followed the tragedy, and of the years he spent carrying it silently on his shoulders, not even letting himself know it was there and hurting him more than he would've like to admit had he recognized that he carried it.

"I'm sorry," she said finally.

The detective nodded. "Don't tell me that," he said gently, "What are you apologizing for?"

A hint of a smile was already showing on his lips and it made Angie smile. "So, it's been thirteen years…"

Mac shook his head. "Indeed it has," he agreed, leaning forward to grab his drink again.

Angie took up her own drink and raised it as she looked over at him with a soft smile. "Lest we forget," she told him.

He smiled and raised his own drink, "Forget not; remember always."


End file.
